


Writer's Month 2019: Timeless Edition

by AndreaChristoph



Category: Timeless (TV 2016)
Genre: 30 Day Prompt Challenge, Bunker bonding, F/M, Flynn plays a guitar, Found Family, Gen, Other, Road Trip, Writer's Month 2019, alternate safehouse, coffee shop AU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-06
Updated: 2019-08-16
Packaged: 2020-08-10 20:07:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 5,893
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20141239
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AndreaChristoph/pseuds/AndreaChristoph
Summary: My entries for Tumblr's Writer's Month 2019 challenge, which involves a full month of daily prompts to fill.  Naturally, I've chosen to fill all of said prompts with Timeless fics.Things you can find inside include: coffee shop AUs, semi-angsty road trips, Flynn playing a guitar like a boss, with more to come (will update summary accordingly).





	1. Annoyance

It’s the fifth time that Jiya wanders by the open door to his room, peeking in as she does so, that Flynn finally lowers his book and sighs. 

Thanks to a well-aimed shot to his thigh on their last mission, Agent Christopher had ended up benching him so he could heal, and he’d been cripplingly bored the entire time (when one couldn’t exit the bunker to get fresh air, one tended to go stir crazy, and he’s really not sure how Connor and Jiya had managed it all this time; even as a wanted criminal, he’d still been able to make brief trips outside). The first few days he’d spent holed up in his room reading with the door closed, until that too had led to cabin fever, and today was the first day he’d decided to leave the door open. 

“Can I help you?” Flynn calls just as Jiya disappears for her sixth lap, and she quickly pops her head back around the corner.

“Pardon?”

He sets his book facedown on the desk next to him. “You’ve been patrolling the hall for an hour now.”

She rounds the corner fully and leans against the doorframe, arms crossed and the hint of a blush on her face. She opens her mouth to respond but he can tell by the look on her face she doesn’t actually have an explanation, and she shuts her mouth once more and looks away. He rolls his eyes and gets to his feet, stretches, then crosses the room over to her. Instinctively she takes a step back, and he tries not to take the movement personally, as he knows his height alone is enough to intimidate most people, let alone the history he had with this particular team.

“What is it, Jiya?” he says, his voice soft as if he’s trying to avoid spooking her.

“I, uh-” She takes one more step back, but finally looks at him and hazards a tiny smile. “I was just wondering if you…”

He nods, encouraging her to go on. “If I what?”

“Do you…like parcheesi?” 

Flynn blinks. Of all the questions he was expecting, that was…not one of them.

“I have no idea what that is,” he finally responds, and she blushes again.

“Yeah, sorry, it was a stupid idea, I was just bored and Connor is holed up in his room and-”

“I didn’t say no, Jiya,” he says, cutting her off, and her face instantly brightens. “You’ll have to teach me, though.”

He can tell she didn’t expect him to say yes, and she practically jogs back toward the kitchen, calling over her shoulder, “I’ll get the board, you get the beers!”

Flynn smiles. He had, of course, played parcheesi before - one of the first board games he’d played with Iris - but he knew how quickly the game could go once it started, and the idea of spending quality time with another human for once was an appealing one.

(Not that he’d tell anyone. He had a reputation to maintain, after all.)

Two hours later when Connor emerges from his room neither Jiya nor Flynn look up, too engrossed in their second game of Life (having polished off three games of parcheesi before deciding to branch out). It’s only once the Lifeboat finally lands that Jiya darts away from the table and over to the computer console, and Flynn watches her depart, the warm smile on his face at odds with the sadness in his eyes. He’s gone before the team disembarks, the door to his room closed once more.

The next day it’s open once more, and Jiya appears like clockwork.

“Scrabble?”

She wins every round. He finds he doesn’t mind.


	2. Hurt/Comfort

Through the whole frenzy of the gunfight they’d managed to stumble into his eyes have been on her, until he finally sees her fall to one knee, a bullet grazing her calf and cutting a bloody path across it. He can see her cry out with pain, and she whirls around and limps away as quickly as she can, calling an order to the rest of the Rittenhouse agents currently covering her retreat.

He follows.

A trail of blood leads him to find her slumped against a wall in an empty alley, breathing heavily as she ties a makeshift bandage around the wound. Her eyes go wide as she sees him and she immediately lifts her gun and points it in his direction, her hands shaking despite her tight grip.

“Jess, drop the damn gun,” he sighs, sliding his own gun into the back of his waistband. He lifts both hands in surrender and takes a step closer. “And let me bandage that properly.”

She stands silent, still out of breath, before she lowers her gun, holding it loose in one hand dangling at her side. She’d summoned all the strength left in her to threaten him and has no energy left, and he can see sweat starting to bead on her forehead. 

“Fine,” she says, her voice hoarse, and she slides down the wall into a sitting position, defeated.

Wyatt kneels next to her and tugs another few strips off the hem of her dress, then pushes it back up over her bent knee so he can see her leg. A blush crosses her cheeks that he knows has nothing to do with being out of breath. A few moments later he has a proper field bandage tied and gently lowers her dress back down to cover her ankle once more.

“How are you?” he asks softly, not making any move to stand again. When she doesn’t answer, he gives her a small, hesitant smile. “Olive branch, Jess.”

“Fine,” she answers, her voice curt, and when he winces, she sighs, her shoulders slumping. “Lots of morning sickness,” she mumbles, one hand slipping unconsciously to rest against her abdomen that is only just starting to show signs of her pregnancy. “It sucks.”

They both laugh softly at the understatement of the century, and Wyatt seats himself next to his wife. He holds his hand out to the side, palm up, and Jessica hesitates before taking it. Their grip tightens, and then he hears her let out a quiet sob.

“I hate this,” she whispers, tears falling. “We should be…babyproofing a house, buying stupid little onesies, painting a nursery, not this…this bullshit. Wyatt, what are we doing?”

He slips one arm over her shoulders and gathers her against him, letting her cry as long as she needs to. “I don’t know, Jess,” he finally answers, voice quiet. “None of this makes a damn lick of sense.” He pauses, then adds, “If you come with me-”

“You know I can’t,” she says, cutting him off and easing herself out of his arms. “You know what they’d do to me. To…to the-…” Again she touches a hand to her belly.

“We can keep you safe.”

“No you can’t, Wyatt. They’re everywhere, literally everywhere. Even if I went to prison, which at this point is probably guaranteed, they’d still be able to get to me.”

He knows she’s right, just as right as the last ten times they’d had a variation of this discussion, stealing a moment during each mission, a moment to just be normal parents-to-be, to be just Jessica and Wyatt. She was determined to stay with Rittenhouse until the baby was due, reasoning it kept her and the baby safe, no matter how much she wanted to stay with him. He argued at first. Then he’d begged. Now he just savored the brief moments he had with her, knowing she’d made up her mind, however stupid a decision he thought it was, and he’d need to respect it. 

So instead he takes her hand again. “Try Dramamine. For the nausea.”

She smiles and rests her head against his shoulder. “I wish…” She doesn’t need to finish. He already knows they wish the same thing - that they could just go home and be together.

He lifts her hand and presses a kiss to her knuckles. “I know,” he murmurs, and when she looks over at him he leans down and kisses her, letting go of her hand to cup her cheek instead. 

She returns the kiss in earnest, tears still falling because she wishes they could just run away, lose themselves to history and never have to deal with Rittenhouse or any of this time travel bullshit again.

But she also knows she can’t. That no matter where they went, Rittenhouse would find them, and she’d made her bed when she chose their side. She’d have to see it through.

“You gotta get back,” she whispers as they part, her eyes still closed. “They’re gonna get suspicious.”

He frowns, and she knows he doesn’t want to leave her behind but is trying to force himself to do so. 

“Give it ten minutes. Then get out of here.”

She nods and takes the hand still cupping her face and kisses it briefly, then pushes his shoulder gently. “Go, Wyatt.”

He gets to his feet and is about to dart away, but pauses. He looks back at his wife, disheveled, bloodied but determined, and swallows heavily. Every time it was just as heartbreaking, every time he didn’t want to leave her, and every time it was like he was watching her form dwindling into the distance in the rearview mirror all over again.

“I love you,” he says, and then he rushes away, running back toward the main square where the rest of his team would be waiting.

She closes her eyes, desperately holding back tears, and whispers to the air, “I love you too.”


	3. Coffee Shop AU

It’s been almost a full month of working on her thesis everyday at the Starbucks near her house, and Lucy Preston has spent that entire time living on a steady diet of coffee and scones. This close to the end, so close that she can almost taste it, she finds her focus lagging, and that’s how she first notices the tall man with dark hair who is at the same café every morning at 8:30 on the dot. 

The first few times she sees him, she finds her mind wandering, watching surreptitiously as he slowly stirs cream into his coffee, his long fingers delicately holding the wooden stir stick, and she chews her lip slightly, imagining what he could do with those hands-

(She’s been more than a little pent up, not to mention she’d barely surfaced from the library long enough to meet anyone new for the past year.)

After a week of glancing over at him and allowing her mind to wander to places that occasionally make her blush, she finally catches his eye, and quickly turns her attention back to her laptop, her face burning. He leaves without any further interaction, and she debates pulling up a map of other Starbucks locations she can work out of that won’t have the same sort of distractions (not to mention, having been caught staring, she would kind of like to go lay down in a ditch somewhere to die).

The following Monday, nursing a hangover from too much wine at her mother’s dinner party the night before (and having fielded constant irritating questions from her mother around either her studies or why she can’t find a nice man), she’s feeling bold, and she hands the barista enough cash for two coffees. “There’s a regular who comes every morning, I don’t know if you’ve noticed - dark hair, really tall?”

The barista smiles. “You mean Dr. Flynn?”

“Oh, he’s a doctor?”

“He works at UCSF - surgeon, I think. He doesn’t say much but he’s always wearing a badge.” There’s a glint in the barista’s eye, her smile taking on a sly edge. “Want me to let him know his coffee is on you?”

Lucy blushes yet again. “No, just…just tell him it was a stranger. I don’t think I’m ready to be that forward.” She laughs weakly, aware of just how pathetic it sounds, but the barista just grins instead.

She nervously watches the clock until 8:30 finally rolls around, and right on schedule he shows up, looking more flustered than usual as he steps into the shop while staring down at the softly beeping pager on his belt. He taps his fingers against his leg as he waits in line, clearly impatient, and is about to rattle off a coffee order when the barista informs him his beverage would be free that day courtesy of a kind stranger.

He glances around the shop for the culprit, brow furrowed, the hint of a smile tugging at his mouth. Lucy staunchly stares at her laptop screen, determined not to be noticed. Finally she hears the jingle of the bell above the door, and lets out a breath as she sees him depart, his body language more relaxed and a little less flustered.

Mission accomplished.

When she sidles up to the counter the week after and groggily requests her beverage, however, she’s surprised to hear that _her_ coffee is free that day. She wonders who the good Samaritan is as she deposits her things at her usual table, but reasons it must just be someone doing their daily good deed.

That is, until she spots the cute doctor seated in one of the comfy chairs near the door, one long leg crossed over the other and a newspaper resting in his lap that he’s intently focused on. She looks back at the barista and sees the girl smirking in her direction.

Well then.

The next few mornings look much the same, except that his chosen seat seems to move closer and closer as the week goes on. By that Friday he’s sitting at the table next to her, close enough she can smell his cologne (and therefore she can’t focus on _anything_ else), and she’s pretending to be reading one of her research books when he leaves the table briefly. She’s finally able to read without distraction and gets through two full pages before she hears the sound of a mug being set down on the table in front of her. She looks up just as he slides back into his chair, and sees a fresh coffee next to her laptop, one she didn’t order. She glances over at him and sees he’s back to reading his paper.

The gesture gives her a tiny confidence boost - surely he wouldn’t be getting her coffee, unless…? But then again, maybe he was just being nice, that’s also a definite possibility-

“One cream, one sugar, yeah?”

She looks at him quickly and sees he’s still focused intently on his paper, but as there is no one else in the vicinity, it’s clear he’s speaking to her. She swallows, her stomach doing a backflip. “Yeah, how…how did you know?”

He smiles, his eyes shifting to look at her, and now she can feel the blush creeping over her face. It’s the first time she’s seen him up close, and she notices things she hadn’t before while he was still keeping a distance. He has a sharp profile that reminds her of the classic look of marble statues, with long lashes that frame bright hazel eyes. He is, in other words, absolutely gorgeous, and against all odds his attention is currently focused directly on her.

“I’ve seen you order a few times,” he admits, managing to look somewhat embarrassed, which almost makes her laugh - she’s used to being the one making an ass of herself or reading signals all wrong. “But, if I’m not wrong, you’ve seen me order a few times as well.”

She nearly answers_ More than a few_ but instead nods and holds a hand out. “Lucy Preston.”

He shakes her hand, and she swallows nervously at the skin-to-skin contact, her body reacting in deeply inconvenient ways for a first conversation. But then she spots a light shade of red creeping over his own cheeks and relaxes somewhat, reassured by the knowledge that he is, at least slightly, as nervous as she is.

“Garcia Flynn,” he answers, and she glances down at the badge pinned to his shirt declaring _Garcia Flynn MD - ER Surgeon_. 

“You’re a doctor.”

He nods. “Only recently was certified to practice in America.”

She notices his light accent for the first time, which does her no favors - tall, dark, handsome, _and_ European? He couldn’t be more her type if he tried. “Judging by your accent, I’m guessing…Eastern Europe?”

He grins. “Good guess. Croatia.”

She’s about to continue the conversation when his pager abruptly goes off, and he tugs it off his belt to read the screen. “Damnit. Looks like an early start today.”

Lucy tries not to look disappointed. “Guess you’d better get going.”

“Looks like it.” But he doesn’t move, his eyes trained on her instead, and he grins. “Listen, Lucy, I was wondering, would you-”

“Yes,” she blurts out before she can stop herself, which gets a laugh from him (and god, his eyes light up when he laughs like that, this has gotta be a dream, someone this handsome can’t possibly be chatting _her_ up). “I mean, if you were about to ask me for coffee. Now, if you were just wondering about the time-”

“No, no, you had it right,” he’s quick to say, still grinning. “But I was thinking something a little less caffeinated at a slightly later hour. Dinner, maybe?”

Okay, she’s definitely dreaming. “In that case, I’d…like that.” She tucks her hair behind one ear self-consciously, and he reaches over to her table to snag her pen and scribbles an email in the margins of her notepad.

“I’ve gotta run,” he tells her, setting the pen back down. “But if you felt like shooting me an email about that dinner, I wouldn’t say no.”

She smiles and nods, thrilled but not wanting to seem too overeager. “Yeah, I…for sure, definitely.” 

He sets a hand over hers and squeezes briefly. “It was nice to finally meet you, Lucy.”

“You, uh, you too.”

“Until next time. Which, with any luck, will be later tonight.”

He gathers his things quickly and rushes out of the shop after that, hailing a cab, and as he’s getting into it he glances back through the cafe window in her direction and offers her a wink. She smiles like love-dazed teenager and gives him a tiny wave in return, then immediately sets her attention to drafting the perfect email to ask him out. Which she then saves to her drafts folder, intending to wait a few hours so as not to come off as totally desperate.

When she does finally send the email off at noon, only five minutes pass before she hears the ping of a response. She quickly opens it, then grins.

_Sounds perfect. See you at 8:00, beautiful. - GF_


	4. Road Trip

When Flynn agreed to Lucy taking the reins on their road trip playlist, he had expected mixes of various turn of the century artists and maybe some questionable indie artists. What he hadn’t expected was John Denver tracks, various 80s bands, and for some inexplicable reason, godawful 90s alt-pop.

He reaches for her phone that is currently sitting in a cup holder between them and holds it up to read the screen. “Goo Goo Dolls? What the hell kind of name-”

“They were really popular back in the day,” Lucy says, keeping her eyes on the road as she drives.

Flynn arches an eyebrow. “With who? Wealthy teens whose parents just don’t understand them?”

She rolls her eyes but otherwise doesn’t react, not even to crack a smile. “Skip it if it’s bothering you so much.” There’s the hint of a defensive edge to her voice, so he sets the phone down instead, determined to see the song through. But when the next song starts, he can’t help the derisive snort that escapes him.

“What-”

“The Wallflowers,” she supplies immediately, not waiting for him to finish the question.

“Somehow I thought your music taste was better, professor, but I won’t make that mistake again.” His tone is lightly mocking, his lips curved into a smirk - a smirk that lasts only seconds before she abruptly pulls the car over to the side of the road and gets out, slamming the door behind her. Flynn stares as Lucy rounds the vehicle and heads for the ditch, then seats herself on the grassy slope of it with her back toward him. 

He shakes off his surprise quickly and unbuckles himself so he can get out as well, then heads toward her, confused. “I thought we weren’t taking a break for another hour.” He gets no response except that she quickly wipes her face when she hears his footsteps behind her. Reaching her side, he can see that she’s crying, and immediately feels like a complete and total ass. “Lucy, I was joking, I didn’t mean-”

“It was Amy’s playlist,” she mumbles, tugging her sleeve down to wipe her face with it in an attempt to compose herself. “She made it for our annual road trip to Oregon.”

Jesus, he clearly wasn’t getting any better at not putting his foot in his mouth. He seats himself beside her on the grass. “I’m sorry, Lucy, I didn’t know.”

“I wouldn’t expect you to know. It’s just…” She looks up at the treetops and sighs. “There’s so little of her left in the world now. History forgot her. All I have are two small photos, and even this stupid playlist I had to make from scratch - every sign of her was missing when I came home the first time.”

Not for the first time he feels a stab of shame as she talks about the sister he took away from her. He knows she doesn’t blame him for that, not anymore, but it was never far from his memory. 

He retrieves his own phone from the inside pocket of his jacket and scrolls briefly, then sets it on the grass between them. After a beat of silence, the opening strains of  _ Every Morning _ by Sugar Ray plays, and she laughs as she hears it. 

“I feel like this playlist is missing some notable ballads from the 90s.” He slips an arm around her shoulders and leans forward so he can see her face past her dishevelled hair. “How about I drive and you add some more songs Amy would have liked?”

She thinks about this for a moment, sniffs once more, then nods. He hops to his feet and holds out a hand to help her up, and Lucy takes it, retrieving his phone from the ground as she stands. Flynn shoves the phone back into his pocket, then tucks her unruly hair back behind her ear. Her eyes are puffy and red, her whole demeanour still vulnerable, and so he pulls her into his arms and hugs her against him, squeezing tightly as if he can show her through sheer force of will how sorry he is. Her arms slip around his waist in return, and she rests her forehead against his chest and nods, silently telling him that she forgives him.

The next hour of driving is filled with more terrible 90s pop, but this time Flynn listens without complaint, occasionally tapping his fingers against his leg along with the rhythm of the songs, and when she finally starts to drift off, Lucy reaches over to take his free hand, and doesn’t let go until she wakes once more.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you're looking for a reason that Flynn and Lucy might be on a road trip, I heartily recommend checking out SallyExactly's Road Ode, which is a FANTASTIC relaxed romp through the US with our favorite dumpster fire and nerd queen, and is definitely what I had in mind while I wrote this.


	5. Sound

When Lucy first hears the music, she assumes Mason is playing records yet again, but it doesn’t take her long to realize it’s only one instrument playing, and the abrupt starting and stopping of the guitar no doubt means someone in their small farmhouse-turned-new-safehouse has tracked the instrument down.

She wanders the hallways for a few minutes, throw blanket wrapped around her shoulders to stay warm in the dwindling sunlight, and can’t seem to track down the source of the noise, and so opts to head outside to check if perhaps it’s coming from the barn or garage - only to find Garcia Flynn seated on the porch outside, leaning back in his chair and with one foot up on the railing as he idly strums the guitar he’s holding. His eyes are trained on the horizon rather than the instrument, though she can tell he’s lost in thought and not truly looking at anything.

She hovers in the doorway and watches for a moment as Flynn’s fingers deftly navigate the strings, playing a quiet, soothing tune. Eventually, he closes his eyes, continuing to play, humming along with the music.

Apparently, the man could still surprise her even now.

Having hovered in the doorway for several minutes and feeling conspicuous about doing so, she finally gently closes the screen door behind her and lowers herself into the seat next to Flynn. He opens his eyes and looks over at her, giving her a small half-smile, but stays silent and continues to play instead. The guitar’s melody is so calm that Lucy finds herself sinking down in her seat further to place her heels on the railing next to his, and she wraps her throw blanket tighter around her shoulders. Her eyes are heavy - they’d done a lot of running that day, after all, and no workout could quite compare to their trips to the past - and she lays her head back against the chair, eyes closed, smiling as she listens to the music.

At some point, she actually manages to fall asleep, as she wakes some time later thanks to jostling movement. She realizes quickly that she’s still bundled in her blanket, and is currently being carried in Flynn’s arms, her head resting against his warm shoulder as she slept. She considers saying something, but decides against it - she’s been just as devoid of human contact as the rest of them, and being this close to Flynn she can smell for the first time the scent of his aftershave. She shifts her head, snuggling closer to his neck, doing her best to just seem like she’s moving in her sleep.

Reaching the upstairs, Flynn lays her down on the small bed she’d claimed when they moved safehouses. Lucy keeps her eyes closed, and feels his fingertips gently skim over her temple as he tucks a loose strand of hair back behind her ear. She opens her eyes slightly as she hears his footsteps move away from her, and sees him open her bedroom window a crack before he leaves her in peace.

Minutes later, she hears the guitar once more as the sound drifts up from the porch and through her open window, and she smiles as it lulls her back into the most peaceful sleep she’s had in weeks.


	6. Kids

“What did you do?”

Jiya does her best to glare sternly down at Fei, who doesn’t want to meet her eyes. She’s practically squirming on the spot, as if her own mother had just caught her with her hand in the cookie jar. But no, it was just her 27 year old best friend from the future.

(Not that Fei knew that last part, of course.)

“I took it.”

“Yes, I know you took it.” If Jiya’s mother could see her now, she’d be so proud that her daughter had become her spitting image in the end, rebellious childhood or not. “Now tell me what ‘it’ is, or I’m marching you right back to your dad-”

Fei opens her hand immediately, knowing her father is far less likely to let her off easy than Jiya is. Sitting in her palm is a polished silver pocket watch, an elaborate monogram stamped into the metal, what would have been a priceless antique in her day, but in this one was merely a trinket owned by a railway magnate or president of a shipping company or whatever similar jobs the uber-wealthy of 1888 held. Whoever the rightful owner of the watch was, it definitely wasn’t the poor Chinese girl currently holding it.

“Where did you get that?”

“He wasn’t looking-”

She sighs. “Fei…”

“And he was really rich! I bet he won’t even notice it’s gone.”

She wasn’t wrong. But that really wasn’t the point.

“Fei, come here.” Jiya seats herself on the edge of her bunk bed and pats the mattress next to her, and Fei hops up onto the bed and scoots closer, her head hung in shame. Jiya can’t help but smile - she too was once a young girl with a wild streak, busy causing trouble and giving all the adults around her headaches, and now here she was, lecturing her little friend because Fei’s mother wasn’t around to do so.

She takes a breath, debating how best to start, then slips an arm around the little girl’s shoulders and squeezes. “You know what, kiddo? This world...kinda sucks.”

Fei giggles quietly at the...unique start to the lecture, but at Jiya’s raised eyebrow her face goes solemn once more.

“Things happen every day that aren’t fair. Bad people are rewarded for bad behavior. Good people suffer and struggle. My mom used to tell me that in the end, karma would sort things out. Have you heard of karma?”

Fei shakes her head. 

“It’s…” She struggles with how to explain the concept to a child. “Well, some people believe that when you do good things, you’re rewarded by the universe. And when you do bad things, you’re punished.”

Fei cocks her head to the side comically, and Jiya has to resist a smile. Clearly the concept of the universe ‘rewarding’ someone is a bit too advanced (or stupid, that’s also possible - she’s a scientist herself and so has never put much stock in karma...not until she started to have visions of the future, anyway, at which point almost anything became possible).

“Okay, lets try this then. You know how hard your dad works at the studio everyday, yeah?” Fei nods. If there’s one thing she takes very seriously, it’s her father’s work ethic. “So if your dad worked really hard for a month so he could save up and buy himself a present - say, a watch - how would you feel if someone came and stole that watch from him?”

“But…”

Instead of continuing to protest again, however, Fei falls silent and looks down at the floor. Jiya feels for her - the world isn’t fair, and horrible people did get rewarded all the time (especially in that day and age), but not all wealthy people were automatically horrible, and she knows she’d be a terrible excuse for a role model if she didn’t instill good values in the young girl. Even if she did technically agree that the man would never miss the item.

“Hmm? How would you feel? How do you think your dad would feel?”

“Bad,” she mumbles reluctantly. “I think he’d be sad.”

“And do you want to make someone else’s daddy feel sad and bad so you can have a watch?”

A pause, and then she shakes her head in the negative.

“I didn’t think so.” She holds her hand out, and Fei hesitates, then sets the silver watch into Jiya’s hand. She gives the girl a tight hug once more. “Atta girl. Now get back to your dad’s studio before he worries, and no more pickpocketing, okay?”

Fei nods, gives Jiya one more hug for good measure, then hops off the bed and darts out the door. Jiya looks down at the watch in her hand, wondering how best to proceed. The man who owned the watch most likely was an awful person, and if she (looking for all intents and purposes like a prostitute, whether or not she was) showed up at a police station looking to turn it in, she’d not only likely be thrown in jail herself, but the police would undoubtedly pocket the watch for themselves.

Instead, she sets it in her night table drawer. She’d likely get a decent amount for it from a fence, and could then in turn use that money to treat Fei’s family to something. The girl would still have good values instilled in her (not as if she needed to _ know _ whether the watch made it back to the owner or not), and Jiya (whose soul was forever tainted about three dead bodies ago) would be able to pay back her friend for all the support their family had given her since she first stumbled into Chinatown in her torn up jeans and sweater, feeling out of place and terrified.


	7. Sports

Most of the time Rufus could cope reasonably well with the reality that his family thinks he’s dead. He wanted to contact them constantly, of course, but the threat of Rittenhouse tracking them down and capturing them (or worse) to get to him is too much of a deterrent for him to go through with it.

He’s not sure what makes him check it that particular day, but he ends up opening a browser on his work laptop and navigates to the webpage of his brother’s high school. He knows there’s a newsletter they release, a newsletter he used to get every month (usually during busy periods when he was rarely at home), and even now nothing has changed, as he finds it quickly and glances over his shoulder to make sure no one is looking as he clicks on the PDF.

He skims through the body of the article quickly, blinking back tears, and he’s not sure whether they’re out of pride for his brother, or hating that his new underground life has meant missing milestones in his family, things he would have given anything to be able to attend.

Near the end of the article he finds a section where his brother is quoted, and he’s not even finished reading it before he feels tears fall, tears that he quickly wipes away. He’s never been much of a crier and he’s not about to start now.

He slams the laptop shut and gets to his feet, heading for the kitchen to retrieve a beer. It’s only later that evening, once he’s already fast asleep, that Jiya bothers to open his laptop and sees the open document still on the screen. She skims the text briefly, her heart aching for him, and rather than pulling an all nighter on coding, she instead crawls into bed next to him, wrapping an arm around his chest and resting her forehead against the back of his neck.

“We’re doing this for them,” she whispers. She gets no response from her fast asleep boyfriend, not that she was expecting one, and she presses a brief kiss to his bare shoulder. “Hang in there, babe.”

* * *

** _SUPERSTAR POINT GUARD KEVIN CARLIN RECEIVES FULL ATHLETIC SCHOLARSHIP_**

_When asked what his biggest inspiration in getting to this point has been, Carlin responded, “My brother, Rufus. He didn’t have the same opportunities that I’ve had, but he still killed it anyway, and he dedicated his whole life to taking care of our family. It’s my turn to pick up where he left off.” _

_Carlin plans to pursue a degree in engineering in addition to sports, a fitting tribute to his brother who sadly passed away in 2016 in a workplace accident. _

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Fanart] Sound](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20562806) by [UnUnpredictableMe (DraejonSoul)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DraejonSoul/pseuds/UnUnpredictableMe)


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